The essays in Maine’s Place in the Environmental Imagination address – from a variety of perspectives – how Maine’s unique identity among the states of the United States has been formed, and what that identity is: A place that is still imagined by others primarily through its environmental associations, its “nature” and landscape, rather than through its social arrangements and human history. The collection attempts a foundational study, not of a regional literature, but of a state literature. In doing so, it makes the case that Maine was constructed imaginatively and environmentally through its literature, and that this image is the one that endures even now. The essays suggest how this identity was formed, by discussing writings ranging from the recently recovered work of Joseph Nicolar, a member of the Penobscot Nation in the late 19th century, to the contemporary Maine author Carolyn Chute; from Thoreau’s canonical essay, “Ktaadn,” to the modernist E.B. White, whose works have an under-appreciated environmental project. Contributors include scholars Nathaniel Lewis, Annette Kolodny, Linda Kornasky, Daniel Malachuk, Kent Ryden, and Lynn Wake

The Maine Woods, vast and largely unsettled, are often described as unchanged since Henry David Thoreau's journeys across the backcountry, in spite of the realities of Indian dispossession and the visible signs of logging, settlement, tourism, and real estate development. In the summer of 2014 scholars, activists, members of the Penobscot Nation, and other individuals retraced Thoreau's route. Inspired partly by this expedition, the accessible and engaging essays here offer valuable new perspectives on conservation, the cultural ties that connect Native communities to the land, and the profound influence the geography of the Maine Woods had on Thoreau and writers and activists who followed in his wake. Together, these essays offer a rich and multifaceted look at this special place and the ways in which Thoreau's Maine experiences continue to shape understandings of the environment a century and a half later. Contributors include the volume editor, Kathryn Dolan, James S. Finley, James Francis, Richard W. Judd, Dale Potts, Melissa Sexton, Chris Sockalexis, Stan Tag, Robert M. Thorson, and Laura Dassow Walls.

Richard Judd and Christopher Beach define the environmental imagination as the attempt to secure 'a sense of freedom, permanence, and authenticity through communion with nature.' The desire for this connection is based on ideals about nature, wilderness, and the livable landscape that are personal, variable, and often contradictory. Judd and Beach are interested in the public expression of these ideals in post-World War II environmental politics. Arguing that the best way to study the relationship between popular values and politics is through local and regional records, they focus on Maine and Oregon, states both rich in natural beauty and environmentalist traditions, but distinct in their postwar economic growth. Natural States reconstructs the environmental imagination from public commentary, legislative records, and other documents. Judd and Beach trace important divisions within the environmental movement, noting that they were balanced by a consistent, civic-minded vision of environmental goods shared by all. They demonstrate how tensions from competing ideals sustained the movement, contributed to its successes, but also limited its achievements. In the process, they offer insight into the character of the broader environmental movement as it emerged from the interplay of local, state, and national politics. The study ends in the 1970s when spectacular legislative achievements at the national level were masking a decline in mainstream civic engagement in state politics. The authors note the rise of the private ecotopia and the increasing complexity in the way Americans viewed their connections with the natural world. Yet, today, despite wide variations in beliefs and lifestyles, a majority of Americans still consider themselves to be environmentalists. In Natural States, environmental politics emerges less as a conflict between people who do and do not value nature, and more as a debate about the way people define and then chose to live with nature. In their attempt to place the passion for nature within a changing political and cultural context, Judd and Beach shed light on the ways that ideals unify and divide the environmental movement and act as the source of its enduring popularity.

The first large-scale, collaborative study of women's voices and their vital role in the American transcendentalist movement. Many of its seventeen distinguished scholars work from newly recovered archives, and all offer fresh readings of understudied topics and texts, shedding light on female contributions.

7: Nature and the Origins of American Civilization in Cape Cod -- Part IV. America's Destiny and Ecological Succession -- 8: Thoreau and Manifest Destiny -- Works Cited -- Index

A richly illustrated catalogue of visual art recording the changing ecology of Monhegan Island, a renowned artist destination off the coast of Maine. With its rugged shoreline, magnificent Cathedral Woods, and rustic cedar-shingled homes, Monhegan Island is quintessential Maine. This historic fishing village situated 10 miles off the coast has long been a haven for artists drawn to the splendor of its ocean vistas and picturesque wildlands and for ecologists fascinated by its complex natural history. Merging art, science, and history, this book explores the broad arc of ecological events on the island—the formation and abandonment of pastureland, forest recovery, and the critical importance of land conservation—through their representation in visual art. Indeed, for well over a century, painters, photographers, printmakers, and cartographers alike have observed and depicted this dynamic landscape. Inspired by a Rockwell Kent painting of white spruce saplings set against blue sea and golden sky, biologist Barry Logan recognized that the island’s ecology could be traced through its artistic depictions across the ages. This collaboration between Logan and Monhegan historian Jennifer Pye and art historian Frank Goodyear yields a new and unprecedented survey of the art of the island through the lens of ecology. This story of Monhegan parallels that of other land conservation efforts throughout the country, yet it is one uniquely well told by island artists, ecologists, historians, and community members.

Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination: The Wilds of Society is the first in-depth sociological examination of the ideas of Henry David Thoreau. By exploring Thoreau's intellectual links to early social thinkers, as well as addressing mainstay Thoreauvian concerns such as the individual-society relationship, social change, and deconstructing society's idea of progress, Shawn Chandler Bingham illustrates the sophistication of Thoreau's sociological imagination, challenging readers to reexamine the disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities. Book jacket.

Hugh P. Possingham Landscape-scale conservation planning is coming of age. In the last couple of decades, conservation practitioners, working at all levels of governance and all spatial scales, have embraced the CARE principles of conservation planning – Comprehensiveness, Adequacy, Representativeness, and Efficiency. Hundreds of papers have been written on this theme, and several different kinds of software program have been developed and used around the world, making conservation planning based on these principles global in its reach and influence. Does this mean that all the science of conservation planning is over – that the discovery phase has been replaced by an engineering phase as we move from defining the rules to implementing them in the landscape? This book and the continuing growth in the literature suggest that the answer to this question is most definitely ‘no. ’ All of applied conservation can be wrapped up into a single sentence: what should be done (the action), in what place, at what time, using what mechanism, and for what outcome (the objective). It all seems pretty simple – what, where, when, how and why. However stating a problem does not mean it is easy to solve.

The English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities held its annual meeting in 2006 at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. The conference theme was “Literature, Writing, and the Natural World.” This collection grows out of the conference and indicates the desire to understand all aspects of our relationship with the natural world, the function of literature in clarifying that relationship (in ways science and politics cannot), and the role of the literature teacher-scholar wanting to respond to pressures of environmental change. In these times, interpretation is a vital task, not only for the way it educates us about our attitudes toward nature, but because it develops the crucial skills of looking closely, engaging, reflecting, and responding. One could argue that, as a culture, Americans are behind the curve in understanding the ways we depend upon a healthy relationship with nature, and one way (among many) depends upon examining it through texts and textual representation. When the writers here dig into The Main Woods, Jayber Crow, the poetry of Pablo Guevara, or the movie Crash, they are contributing to our understanding of the ways in which we view nature and how that view plays a role in the way we relate to nature. These days, many disciplines engage global warming and other environmental issues routinely, and the literature classroom should be no different. Just as we read a book and address fundamental themes such as “What does it mean to love?” or “How do we develop identity?” we should also be asking “What is my responsibility when I decide what resources to use?” If we understand literature as equipment for living in a warming world, we may be able to help students make some sense out of their world and some decisions about how to act.

Since the late eighteenth century the ideals of political democracy and individual flourishing have become so entangled that most people no longer differentiate them. The American Transcendentalists did. Two Cities is the first comprehensive account of the original but still underrated political thought of this movement, especially that of its three major authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. For decades, Daniel S. Malachuk contends, readers have misinterpreted the Transcendentalists as worshipping democracy and secularizing personhood. Two Cities proves the opposite. Focusing on their major writings, Malachuk presents the Transcendentalists as wresting apart and thus clarifying democracy as a profane project and individuality as a sacred one. Building upon this basic insight, the book affirms many recent but discrete conclusions about the movement’s various contributions (especially to liberalism, environmentalism, and public religion) and shows that we will understand how these commitments hang together only when we “re-transcendentalize the Transcendentalists.” In five useful chapters—on the two-cities tradition within the history of liberalism, on the rival and subsequently dominant “overlap” theories of Lincoln and others, and on the unique contributions to two-cities thought by each of the major authors—Two Cities reintroduces readers to the Transcendentalists as among the most original and important contributors to American political thought.